what comes around goes around (just like a flip turn)
by Emullz
Summary: an au in which the delinquents are instead members of a high school swim team and the season is not, in fact, a "big old fun ride in chiddy chiddy bang bang" like octavia predicts


Octavia maintained the idea that swimming was fucking torture for the complete sixteen years that she competed. Of course, she was really good at it, for a reason she never understood. She'd always been looking for ways to do less work, less yardage, sit on the side of the pool and watch everyone else swim. For God's sake, she picked breaststroke as an eight year old because the sets were ten times easier than any other stroke.

But everyone on the team knew that once you started swimming there was no way out. The team was your family and the pool was your home and the coaches were your really annoying, overly strict parents. Octavia knew that there was a part of her, somewhere very deep down, that would miss swimming if she ever quit. That didn't mean she had to admit she liked it, though.

She blamed Bellamy. He was one of those absolutely insane kids that everyone was scared of, the ones that would yell at your for cheating and actually sprint when the coaches told him to and stayed after to finish the 600 warmdown that was assigned. Octavia didn't know anyone else who actually stayed after to do the entire warmdown. She got out after 4 laps, and he insisted on doing all 24. The only one still in the pool when he got out was Clarke Griffin, and she was insane anyways.

And he swam butterfly. Correction: he _liked_ to swim butterfly. The stroke that had made almost every ten year old who had every jumped in the pool cry, the stroke that used possible every muscle in your body to the point where everything was in so much pain you felt numb, the stroke that Octavia hadn't done two-armed since high school started. Bellamy was a nationally ranked butterfly legend. Octavia was sometimes horrified to be related to him.

She maintained that it was his fault, that she was constantly ruining her life. He'd been the one who was spending so much time at the pool when she was little and hadn't had anything else to do with her but bring her along. It wasn't her fault he was her idol, that she looked up to him in every way. Octavia often reflected on how stupid she'd been as a six year old, the entrance age for Bellamy's elite club, all excited to do anything and everything her big brother was doing. She always answered the question "what would you do if you had a time machine?" with the same three words: "I'd never swim."

There was a sort of club that Octavia belonged to, the kids that were too good to quit after they outgrew JO's but hated practice with every fiber of their being. It was mostly the sprinters, the kids who swam 50 free and 100 back and had every intention of swimming as little as possible. Monty, their resident backstroker, and Jasper, the freestyler with the crazy but somehow effective stroke that every team has, were her favorites in her lane. Mostly because, once in a blue moon, they'd come to practice stoned and get yelled at for floating underwater at the wall and blowing bubble rings. Also because they were funny as hell. Murphy, who swam the 100 and was a complete jackass about it, had honorary membership because he flipped off the coaches every time they revealed another set but somehow still managed to be one of their favorites, and Raven, the smart one, sometimes managed to wrangle a practice off to work on complex physics or whatever other classes she was taking at the local college.

And then there was Clarke Griffin. The only person who rivaled Bellamy in star power and insanity was the blonde coach's daughter. She was one of those people that would refuse to sit with the team before a race, instead glaring at the wall with her headphones in. There was all kinds of speculation around what type of music she was blasting into her ears. Octavia had her money on pop, Jasper thought dubstep, and Monty would be his life on the fact that it was hardcore hip hop. Of course, it must've worked, because she usually got in and swam the 500 in under 4:45, sweeping the competition and getting out without even a smile.

Octavia was a little bit afraid of Clarke. It didn't help that she was also somewhat afraid of her crazy, doctor turned swim coach mother, who was always the one who called Octavia out on her fake cramps and joint pain. Raven always said that you just had to give the woman a chance, especially after Raven snapped a tendon in her leg. Coach Griffin was the one who did the surgery at the local hospital. Coach Griffin didn't play favorites, but if she did, Raven would've been at the top of her list. And, for whatever reason, Bellamy would've been at the bottom. In fact, Bellamy wasn't at the top of any coach's list. Not Kane's, not Griffin's, and certainly not Jaha's. The time that he'd done a cannonball into the pool and gotten the coach's new blazer soaking wet had made sure of that.

It made life for Octavia hard, because as his little sister, some of the blame transferred to her. Mostly with good reason, but it wasn't her fault whenever she pressured her brother to have fun and live a little something went drastically wrong. And she wasn't the only one with a hand in it. Sometimes it was Murphy, sometimes it was Miller, the other flyer in Bellamy's lane, even Raven had managed to get him out of his comfort zone a couple of times. But, for some reason, it was always Octavia's fault.

Clarke was always perfect. She was the golden child in every aspect of the sport. She never missed a practice, not even the optional ones, Octavia had never seen her skip a single lap, and she requested faster intervals when she felt like hers weren't challenging enough, but she never asked for slower ones when she thought the ones on the board were too fast. She just rose to the challenge. It made Octavia weirdly jealous, because clearly this girl loved swimming enough to let it be her entire life, loved it enough to enjoy the hours of torture she was put through every day. Or, I guess, love it enough to not call it torture.

But that had all been when it was just club swimming for Octavia, when meets were just for herself and her times and practices were all club coaches and age group lanes and there was one meet at the end of every season and that was it. High school swimming changed all of that.

The private school high school league was one of the most competitive in the nation, with each participating school boasting at least one Olympic level swimmer and some boasting silver medalists and national record holders. The only real reason Octavia hadn't quit swimming, besides the immense difficulty she would've had trying to disentangle herself from the pool, was the fact that it was what was giving her a full ride to one of the top academic schools in the area. Bellamy wouldn't let her go anywhere else, and swimming was the only way in.

So, after three months of freshman year and the ordinary club swimming, the first day of high school swimming was a bit of a shock. Instead of avoiding having to put on her cap and goggles, Octavia found herself up in the stands, looking over the pool with only her new teammates around her.

The team wasn't big. Sixteen girls, maybe as many guys. Bellamy's friends, the ones that Octavia saw around the house sometimes, were sitting in a tight row at the back of the stands. Bellamy stood at the front, facing everyone, with Clarke at his side. Octavia took a seat in between Monty and Jasper, looking at the still water, knowing that soon she'd be immersed and fighting off the cupcake she'd eaten at lunch.

"Hi, guys," Clarke said loudly. The area silenced quickly, everyone looking up from their conversations at the pair standing awkwardly in front of them. "Welcome to the first official swim practice of the year. I'm Clarke, the captain of the girl's team, and this is Bellamy, captain of the boys."

"But that doesn't mean that we're separate teams. We have most meets together and we practice together, and everyone knows how painful swimming can get. We're in it as one team, not two." Octavia suppressed a laugh, finally understanding what Bellamy had been practicing in the mirror that morning. "And, for that reason, we're giving you the day off from the pool. We'll get a fresh start tomorrow. Today, we're going to focus on meeting each other, getting to know each other."

"Swimming may be classified as an individual sport," Clarke continued, "but we're getting ready to go through hell together. We might as well know who's going to be next to us in the flames."

Octavia linked her arm in Monty's as the team went around saying names, grades, and events in a line. There wasn't any way she could've kept track with all the names, but there was a girl named Monroe in her biology class that swam the 200 freestyle, and another one of the phenomenons Wells, a junior like Clarke who swam the 200 and 400 IM. Octavia gave him silent props. You had to be almost as crazy as a distance swimmer to pull off any type of IM. Being able to sprint every single stroke in a row was a feat Octavia had never been able to pull off.

"I'm Octavia Blake, I'm a freshman, and I'm that bitch you all hate because I swim only the easy breaststroke sets," Octavia chimed when it was her turn, grinning at the snorts she heard from behind her. Bellamy pursed his lips, looking vaguely disappointed. The thing that got Octavia, though, was the fact that Clarke smiled- actually _smiled_ \- when a joke was cracked. She was actually human.

Jasper and Monty tag teamed their introductions, ever the dynamic duo, and that was it with the name giving. After that, they headed out to the soccer field and played ultimate frisbee during probably the last nice afternoon of the year, creating an intense rivalry between Team Speedo and Team Decency, the former wearing only their bathing suits and their sneakers, and the latter wearing actual clothes. Bellamy led Team Speedo to a narrow victory over Clarke, and every swimmer went home that night with a pleasant tired feeling and very grass-stained legs.

On the way home, Octavia asked Bellamy what was going on between him and Clarke. "I mean," she said, letting her hair stream out the window behind her, enjoying the dry feeling for as long as she had it, "you're always complaining about how she's showing you up, taking your limelight, trying to prove she's better than you, and suddenly you guys are all buddy-buddy putting up a united, High School Musical esque front to the team, like you're the parents and we're the kids in the backseat and this is all just gonna be one fun ride in Chiddy Chiddy Bang Bang."

Bellamy laughed out loud, heartily, something he only ever seemed to do when it was only Octavia around. "She's a damn good swimmer and she knows how to lead a team, O. I've never been in charge of anything in my life. I need to learn how to take my cues if I'm going to be any kind of success as captain, you know?"

"You've been in charge of me for, what, fifteen years now?"

Bellamy didn't turn his head, but Octavia caught his gaze out of the sides of his eyes, a smile creeping up into them. "And look how you turned out, 'that bitch you all hate.'"

Octavia punched him in the arm, hard, and the car swerved every so slightly. Neither of them stopped smiling the rest of the way home.

The next few practices were less smiles and more intense amounts of pain. Since they were, quote unquote, one team, there was one set with modified times that was handed out to the entire pool. When it was distance day, everyone swam 600s together. When it was IM day, everyone did two arm butterfly or they came up to breath and found a kick board flying at their head. And, when it was breaststroke day, Octavia was moved up to the fastest lane with Clarke, Bellamy, and Wells and told to bust her ass. She realized halfway through the set that what she had thought was a leak in her goggles was actually just tears.

The next day, Monroe had to carry her from class to class and it was backstroke day, otherwise known as Monty's day to get tortured until he passed out. Every day, Octavia swam her warmup in constant fear that Jaha would stop her at the wall and say, "Blake, lane one." It was basically a death sentence. But it was, after all, a required death sentence that kept her from having to pay any school expenses whatsoever. Octavia knew better than to complain. Instead, she kept her head down and prayed to every God she knew of that it would be any other day but breaststroke day, and that she would be safe.

Bellamy hated watching his sister's face crumple as she slid into the water at the start of his lane. He hated the way she asked him shakily if he would go in front of her, and he hated the way she'd reach the wall, gasping, only to have three seconds rest before she had to start all over again. The only person who hated seeing Octavia like that more than he did was Wells.

Bellamy hadn't known the kid for long. Jaha, Wells' father, was a new coach, brought in because of Bellamy and Clarke's national recognition. His one task was to make the school a swimming powerhouse. Bellamy knew he had the tools. He knew his teammates, he knew their potential. But he also knew that the way Jaha was going about it was all wrong. It might work for Clarke, and it might work for him, but yelling at Octavia had always been the exact wrong thing to do. She shut down. She failed out of spite. But Jaha just kept yelling, and glaring at Bellamy as if still mad about the blazer incident, insistent on taking it out at his sister.

But Wells was a good kid. He had his head on straight, and he could swim a damn good 400 IM. But every time Jasper swore as his fingertips touched the wall just in time for the interval to be over, Wells looked a little bit more angry. Bellamy finally understood why when the kid blew up on the pool deck.

"Look!" he was shouting. "Look at all these kids that are terrified, that would rather be anywhere else but in this pool with you breathing down their necks! I like these kids, Dad, and you know how much I love this sport, but I can't get in every day and know that you're doing the exact wrong thing for everyone in this pool! You always say I'm the reason that you do it, the reason that you do all of this. Well, maybe if I'm gone you will be too."

And then his goggles weren't on his forehead, they were at Jaha's feet, and Wells was halfway down the locker room stairs before Bellamy had enough presence of mind to run after him.

"C'mon, kid," he pleaded. "We're a tough team. We can make it through this. But not without you, you're our voice of reason."

"I'm going back to train at Light," Wells said. Bellamy remembered, very vaguely, hearing about Well's old team there. "I'm taking my dad with me. He's a better coach in the city."

Bellamy had to nod. The kid was right. It was the best thing to do. For Wells, for Jaha, for the team. It didn't help that Clarke cried for days afterwards. Losing her best friend was the only thing that seemed to be able to phase her. Bellamy had swam with the girl since the day he'd turned nine, and he'd never seen her balk at a single piece of a single set, never seen her get mad at the coaches, or anybody else in her lane for skipping or swimming slowly in front of her or pulling on her feet. The only person he'd ever seen her get mad at was herself.

But now, she was mad at everything. He stopped her after practice, two, maybe three days after Wells got on his train back to Light with his father in tow with a hand on her shoulder in the school parking lot. Octavia was waiting for him in his old beat up truck with the lights on. He could see her raising her eyebrows when he asked Clarke if she was okay.

"Yeah, I just-" Bellamy watched her breath frost in front of her face in the cold November air. "He was my best friend. I mean, he has been, for a really long time, and he moved here to train with me and now I just feel like I'm losing him, which is so incredibly stupid because it's not like anything's changed from when we were first friends, he's always lived far away, I just thought that it would be different and I'd finally have a friend that was close and would be able to understand everything, and I'm really sorry, you probably have to go home and I'm talking your ear off-"

"It's fine, Princess," Bellamy said, watching the words curl as vapor into the space between them, just barely catching the smile on her lips as he dragged out the old childhood nickname. "I get it. You want someone who understands that the pool is your life and can bring over bags of ice and junk food when you can barely get off of your couch because of From A Dive Fridays."

Clarke closed her eyes and took a deep breath, ready to spout out the same self-sacrificing bullshit she always did about how she was the one who chose this life, and it was dumb to expect people to understand. Bellamy stopped her in her tracks.

"It's not too much to ask for, Clarke. It's never too much to ask for a friend. But you know what is kinda stupid?" Bellamy watched the water drip from the end of Clarke's ponytail and onto her collar. "Ignoring all the ready made friends you already have swimming one lane over."

Bellamy walked over to his truck and got in without another word to Clarke. He did wait until she was in her car, a much shinier and quieter one than his, and let her pull out of the parking lot first.

"What the hell was that, Bell?" Octavia asked indignantly, turning up the heat. The vents rattled.

"She's been upset over Wells, and I thought I'd see if she was okay. Is that a crime?" Bellamy gripped the steering wheel hard.

"Worry about the Ice Princess' feelings on a night when we aren't in danger of being too late to watch MasterChef," Octavia grumbled, angling all the vents toward her. Bellamy didn't fix them, just handed Octavia his coat at the next red light and let himself shiver for a little bit on the way home.

The next day, Bellamy was standing up in the bleachers again, nervous out of his mind. The kids looked at him lazily, still in their school clothes. Bellamy noticed with a twinge of annoyance that Octavia's skirt was a lot underneath the minimum length. He was all for her being a feminist and rebelling against the dress code, but he didn't really like the way that Atom was eyeing her, or the way that she smiled back.

"As you all witnessed," Clarke began suddenly, "Coach Jaha went back to his position at his old school in the city." There was a cough and a couple of laughs directed at his sister. Bellamy bristled.

"The only coach the school has been able to provide us with on such short notice is no more than a glorified chaperone to make sure we don't drown," Bellamy continued gruffly. "This puts the responsibility of this team on Clarke and I. We'll schedule practice, we'll write the sets, we'll be there to support each and every one of you."

"But we can't be watching you during practice to make sure that you aren't slacking off. It needs to come from you. This loss hurt all of us, but it's our responsibility now to show all our competitors that it doesn't take a coach to make us great. We're just going to have to become great ourselves."

Clarke nodded at Bellamy, and he stepped forward. "We have three weeks until our first meet, and it's against the Grounders. We're not going to take this meet lightly, but I'm going to tell you something that you need to carry with you all season. It doesn't matter how you swim in three weeks. That's after we break you down, after we tear every muscle fiber in your body. What matters is how good we are at the end of the season. How well we do after we build you all back up. So let's everyone get into their suits and be on the pool deck, ready to practice in ten minutes."

Bellamy watched proudly as the team filed out of the stands and down into the locker room, girls to the left and boys to the right. Clarke bumped his shoulder with hers.

"You ready for Murphy to flip you off when you show everyone the set?"

Bellamy laughed. "Princess, he's been flipping me off since we were in Kindergarten. I can handle it."

 **ok so for some notes**

hmu on the media (my ao3 and tumblr are also emullz, i also have a 100 blog under the url b3ll4rke)

 **NOW FOR THE GLOSSARY**

A set is like an itinerary for practice- sort of like a schedule. It maps out everything you're doing, similar to a personal trainer writing a list of activities with reps. It can say that you're going to do 3 100s freestyle on an interval of 2 minutes. An interval is the amount of time a swimmer has to finish a certain amount of laps. If I'm doing 4 laps on an interval of 2 minutes (written as a 100 on the 2:00) I might finish my laps in a minute and a half and get 30 seconds rest, or finish in 1:55 and only get 5 seconds rest.

This may only be true for my specific team growing up, but we had the lanes set up so it was like a ladder of who was better. Lane six was where the kids who weren't as good went, and lane five was a little better, and so on and so on. Lane one was where the best kids in the pool swam. The better your lane, the faster your interval, and the less time you have to do everything. Then you get less rest, and more tired, which leads you to get even less rest, and so on.

"In the lane" just means you're sharing lane space with them. A lane is divided into two sections by a line at the bottom of the pool, and "circle swimming" is when you always swim on the right, so you can fit more people into one lane and not bump into each other. And yes, a flyer is someone who swims fly. Backstroker, breaststroker, and freestyler are the terms for people who swim backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle respectively.

any other questions, please ask. thank you for reading, please enjoy!


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